When Pleasure Becomes a Protest: The Fight Over Who Gets to Enjoy Sex

How queer sex lives thrive in private spaces

Dani Lamorte

Published: February 10, 2025 | Last Updated: February 10, 2025

"It is precisely at times such as these, when we live with the possibility of unthinkable destruction, that people are likely to become dangerously crazy about sexuality," wrote Gayle Rubin, University of Michigan anthropology and women's studies associate professor, in her 1984 essay "Thinking Sex."

Flash forward to Aidan Maese-Czeropski, once an aide for former Sen. Ben Cardin, having sex in 2023. You might have heard about it: He was in a Senate hearing room with another man and, with his help, recorded the action to share in a private online group.

When a right-wing outlet leaked Maese-Czerposki's video, the question was raised: Did Maese-Czerposki, by having consensual sex with another consenting adult, do something criminal? Although U.S. Capitol Police determined there was "no evidence that a crime was committed," he lost his job all the same.

Maese-Czerposki wanted to be seen as a sexual person, a person having actual gay sex. He wanted to show us his thrills and pleasures. News stories and community chatter made him seem like an outlier, but I know that's not true. So does Alex, who discussed this very thrill with me (and along with our other sources, requested anonymity).

"Public play at the beach or club, frequenting bathhouses, these are all big sexual triggers for me," he tells me.

In 2019, Alex exited a long-term straight relationship and began exploring his sexuality both in-person and online, including via an "alt" — or "alternative account" — on X and Bluesky.

"The alt provides that in smaller doses — allowing me to share some of those experiences with more people, but also taking experiences that would otherwise be private and making them public."

Alt accounts can be anonymous or identifiable and can serve as places to share homemade sexual content or repost content from elsewhere. An alt is complementary to a "main" — an account used for everyday, less-explicitly sexual purposes.

"When I share a nude of myself and I see other accounts liking, commenting, resharing, I say to myself 'Yeah, I've still got it,'" explains Matt about his alt account.

Chris maintains a private alt, accessible only to those who follow him. It assures him of mutual interest between himself and those who look, but it also addresses an ethical question.

"My alt is locked, so I have a bit of control over who sees the content. This means that there is a real ethos of consent — everyone who sees what I post wants to see it. I appreciate that the boundaries are clear and the purpose of why we're all there is intentional."

As in most environments — from the grocery store to the gynecologist's office — boundary-crossing is not uncommon on social media. A quick browse on Bluesky, however, shows that most interactions between alt accounts are appreciative, respectful and hot.

But if you ask the authors of Project 2025, these accounts are dangerous.

Sex may not be identical to other pleasures in life, but it’s also not a contaminant introduced into an otherwise pure and "normal" life. It is part of "normal" life. As politically conservative forces work to impose anti-sex policies, and to conflate gender transition with sex, Rubin’s words become more and more important.

"Pornography has no claim to First Amendment protection and its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women," the Project 2025 website claims. "Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime."

Pornography can be misogynistic and violent, University of Michigan anthropology and women's studies associate professor Gayle Rubin concurs in a 1993 essay, but there's nothing about pornography that is inherently more misogynistic and violent than, say, “Law & Order: SVU.” Likewise, daytime television can be disrespectful of children's autonomy and personhood. Myself, I'm pretty creeped out by the Charmin commercial where the mother bear checks to see how well her cubs wipe their butts while away from home. What sets porn apart from other kinds of media is sex.

In her landmark 1984 essay, "Thinking Sex," Rubin argues that our "culture always treats sex with suspicion." We view sexual pleasure as different from the pleasures of "food, fiction or astronomy" and, as a result, "erotic behavior is considered bad unless a specific reason to exempt it has been established." Generally, sex has to be about love or reproduction to be considered completely good. Sex outside these boundaries — especially gay sex, masturbation and fetish sex — is considered corrosive to society.

Sex isn’t always what you think it is, either. For instance, Project 2025 groups pornography with "transgender ideology"— a dogwhistle term that collapses trans life and medical transitions into a political problem. Project 2025 treats medical transitions as inherently pornographic and — following their general anti-sex stance — dangerous to society.

In the context of all this, I bring up "the alt" because it's a small place where sex is enjoyed outside the promise of betrothal or babies. It's a thing about which someone's likely to “become dangerously crazy.” And when they do get crazy, it matters how the rest of us respond.

When the Senate hearing room video began to circulate, some opined that Maese-Czerposki had screwed the gays over. Conservatives are always convinced we're up to something and now they claimed to have proof. While I'm sympathetic to the fears at the root of this argument, I think it caves to a deceptive conservative idea: that having sex, and letting people see you having sex, is wrong. Notably, there was limited public backlash against the leaking of Maese-Czerposki’s private video. In American politics, porn is acceptable only if it’s used to punish someone else.

Sex may not be identical to other pleasures in life, but it’s also not a contaminant introduced into an otherwise pure and "normal" life. It is part of "normal" life. As politically conservative forces work to impose anti-sex policies, and to conflate gender transition with sex, Rubin’s words become more and more important.

I’m not sure it’s possible to be completely sane about something as powerful as sex (or food, for that matter), but we can at least stay alert for delusions of shame. We can, to borrow from Rubin, examine our preconceptions, update our sexual educations and recognize the politics of talking, having or showing sex.